Theatrical reading of ‘1984’ at Senate House

It’s a pretty well-known fact that the inspiration for George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in his cautionary dystopian novel 1984 is the Senate House of Bloomsbury. (Whether the real Room 101, currently occupied by the University of London Students’ Union, is the one Winston Smith encountered those rats in in the mind of the author is still up for debate…)

What better place then to stage a free, all-day live reading of the book?

SOAS now occupies the North Block of the iconic Senate House. The doors opened at the start of the 2017-18 academic year but it all felt rather official with the unveiling of the SOAS letters above the door last week.